whats the entry salary for KRA and those audit firms?
There is absolutely no negotiation for those with little or no experience. Graduates entering the workforce soon realize that the few jobs that are available offer salaries from 15 to 25k. Employers here take advantage of no minimum wage, a lack of respect for contracts, and an unlimited supply of a young workforce. If you’re planning to return to Kenya start building a network because you wont land a good job quickly without them.
I get what you are saying but actually a lot of companies can afford to pay Kenyans more money. Maybe not 100K+ but one thing I’ve noticed being in Kenya is that the pay for locals is mostly arbitrary. It’s not on companies abilities because many of these multi nationals (banks, software, NGOs, etc) will pay someone with a foreign passport 20x the pay of a Kenyan doing the same work.
Your solution can be to offer a standard salary package with performance based incentives.
It’s unfortunate because negotiating helps employers just as much as it helps job seekers. To me, it would be a good sign to see an applicant counter an offer but I understand that isn’t a option for many bright Kenyans who just need income. And I’m not returning to Kenya to look for a job in Nairobi, I’ll be returning for biz. In biz, a huge part of success is building the right team and giving employees the right comp, incentives + work culture. A good workforce will bring more money into a biz than any product or strategy, a bad workforce (Kenya has many) will sink a whole biz.
kenya kuna kitu kama PTO, 401k mental health days kweli?
huku ni yes sir na unakuwa threatened vile watu huko inje wanatafuta kazi
This is how it should be but in Kenya not many employers are willing to pay that.Very few earn what they are supposed to earn before they join management
You want to come and start a biz.How it worked for one man who was working for GlaxoWelcome in UK.
He won a govt tender to build a certain software.
He came,got 4 fresh graduate and one experienced person to supervise them.
The juniors were earning 40k each and that was back in 2012,the supervisors was pocketing 150k monthly yet it was not his fulltime job.
The project was a success and by the time the project owner was relocating to Kenya he had won more tenders and employed more guys.
Where he messed ni when he was paid a certain project akapeleka pesa to his personal projects thus not paying the employees their salo and bonuses.
The latter project failed and he was taken to court.
So if you are focused you can start it well but don’t get greedy.Labor is cheap in Kenya.Oohh i have talked too much
Reading birrioneas comments. On the ground mambo tofauti
how long
It’s okay kuongea openly naelewa lakini your friend from UK startup seems more of a Jua Kali - bootstraps approach to biz. I wouldn’t relocate to Kenya like that to bootstrap a company because it would be an automatic downgrade in lifestyle. Tenderpreneurs ni local hustles. The only money to be made in Africa today is market share. You want to go directly to consumers and avoid these govt contracts at all costs. Let the natural growth of the biz attract government to you on your own terms if you must. I have a project with pre-seed capital and I’d ideally be relocating to Kenya when I’ve gotten seed funding. In my industry and stage in project, seed funding is about 70k USD. I’d be building a team in Kenya when I relocate but it will be obviously to get a product to market but more importantly as leverage for investors in a next rounds of funding. By investors, I mean Watu wa biashara wako majuu, these includes Kenyan Ams & Jungus who are very keen to follow biz protocol & standards compared to local investors and operators.
Depends on the internship ulifanya uni in my opinion…
Kama ni ya power, job yako ya kwanza shouldn’t be less than kile ulilipwa hio internship
Curious
I came back from the US with the sincerest intentions of pursuing the startup dream that we are all now endeared to from the buzz of Silicon Valley and mega buyouts. As another talker has already mentioned,kwa ground vitu ni different.
Here are my three take aways:
- Startup culture abroad has singlehandedly been uplifted by the ability of people to work for a greater good and most or some employees know someone or have read about how stock options can make one immensely rich if and when the company is acquired. This allows them to work and live a spartan lifestyle, I am talking wearing T shirts everyday,eating pizza and commuting cheaply. Lifestyle creep in Kenya will prevent even your best employee from sticking out those tough first years of the company. Family,siblings and friends are constantly blowing up their phone for financial help I CAN GUARANTEE you they will cave into that pressure and get disgruntled very quickly. Can you imagine telling your folks that you have stock options that will vest 5 years from now and they need 20k to settle a small loan they had taken?I saw this happen with one of my employees.
- Kenyans at this point in our social progression have not yet reached that collective self actualisation that gives you pride in your work. If you have visited any shop owned by an Indian, you will be disturbed by the way they bark and command their Kenyan employees around.Until you start your business and hire locals then you will know why.Everyone will tell you that employees here genuinely believe that they are doing you a favour by showing up to work. Meaning they are interested in everything but working.If it’s not browsing the web and staring at their phones,it’s cutting corners on small tasks like making phone calls or updating records and mindless chatting with other employees.Indians are able to run businesses well because they are usually a unit of 5-10 family members involved in daily operations therefore the one you see at the shop can afford to sit there all day everyday to supervise.If you are a local like me,it means you are a one man act.This is the single deadliest thing you can ever do in business here.
- Kenyans are the most hard working people that I have ever known. Just look at our roads as early as 5 am and see the masses trooping to work day in day out. We are also very good at writing CVs and job interviews because looking for jobs as I came to find out is actually a career on its own in Kenya.If you looking to start something in Kenya,forget the nonsense of incentives and salary negotiations and scratch your head until you go bald thinking how you can automate 60-70% of your systems from marketing to operations and bookeeping.Heck,try and automate at the very least 40%.I repeat,before you even register the business,AUTOMATE AUTOMATE AUTOMATE ATLEAST 40% of daily operations.That way you can hire and replace without being held at ransom.DON’T try and be a hero.
Your thoughts are good.I thought you are out to make a quick buck like everyone else.
The OP specifically asked for “Top Graduates”, hizo nimepeana ni very realistic for at least the top 20% of graduates in Kenya, trust me
Entry level jobs is for 24 years olds, msee ameuliza watu wako late 20s, hao ni watu wako na about 4 years of experience… many company tuanze na safaricom, then all serious tech companies (over 50 I think), then government, Universities, NGOs, companies managed mainly by foreign investors (over 100s), all top hospitals (over 10) etc. jobs ni mingi… in fact the problem is getting qualified Kenyans for those salaries, I have been in that position many times looking for qualified grads wenye wako na like 3 years of experience in the specific skill you want unakosa even after 6 months of searching… work hards mboyz, pesa iko
Some few years back when Tusky’s supermaket had an opening for internship…yes internship they received over 3,000applications and a majority of the applicants has Masters and Bachelors degrees…let that sink in.
I appreciate your feedback. You make some valid points and reveal some hard truths which I’ve struggled with accepting.
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This startup culture is hard to ingrain and it affects us as African so much although I believe that a lot of it stems from stereotypes. I know investors who will only invest in a company that is dominated by non locals. For instance, my industry is in software. By default American investors will inc a biz stateside but in my industry they go as far as keeping most of the dev ops non local. It’s not race thing because a Diasporan, black American, white, jew any would do, but there would be issues with a local African handling anything related to software development. However, I could (cheap) hire a local Kenyan sales team, HR, marketing team no problem. Is this wrong? I think so. Is it practical? yes.
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I disagree with you on this one. I think we are in a different era for Kenya. Young people do take pride in their work and they are more willing to level up to a global standard. This is where compensation comes in place. I think it’s possible to attract local talent in a genuine way with the right incentives. A job right out of uni, say starting at 50k per month with benefits, being able to work from home with company supplied laptop/WiFi etc…and being able to work with a great team, building a great product in a respectful work environment…I think these are some of the younger generations idea of a “Kenyan dream” entry job and it involves some tough work.
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I agree on automation. I’m in an industry that automates by default and uses it as guarding principle. However, there’s a limit to automation especially in an environment like Kenya. Managing people is still paramount.
Pay is based on supply and demand. How many people out there can do the job available? And how much are most of them willing to accept? If you answer these two questions honestly, you’ll realise it’s a buyers market for most employers in Kenya. No use pointing at expats, I doubt there are more than 5,000 in Kenya, which is a rounding error in the Kenyan job market